A physician once remarked to me as a proof
of the exciting nature of anger, that a man when excessively jaded
will sometimes invent imaginary offences and put himself into a passion,
unconsciously for the sake of reinvigorating himself; and since hearing
this remark, I have occasionally recognized its full truth.

Several other states of mind appear to be at first exciting,
but soon become depressing to an extreme degree. When a mother
suddenly loses her child, sometimes she is frantic with grief,
and must be considered to be in an excited state; she walks
wildly about, tears her hair or clothes, and wrings her hands.
This latter action is perhaps due to the principle of antithesis,
betraying an inward sense of helplessness and that nothing can be done.
The other wild and violent movements may be in part explained
by the relief experienced through muscular exertion, and in part
by the undirected overflow of nerve-force from the excited sensorium.
But under the sudden loss of a beloved person, one of the first
and commonest thoughts which occurs, is that something more
might have been done to save the lost one. An excellent
observer,[12] in describing the behaviour of a girl at the sudden
death of her father, says she "went about the house wringing
her hands like a creature demented, saying `It was her fault;'
`I should never have left him;' `If I had only sat up with him,'
" &c. With such ideas vividly present before the mind,
there would arise, through the principle of associated habit,
the strongest tendency to energetic action of some kind.

As soon as the sufferer is fully conscious that nothing can be done,
despair or deep sorrow takes the place of frantic grief.
The sufferer sits motionless, or gently rocks to and fro;
the circulation becomes languid; respiration is almost forgotten,
and deep sighs are drawn.

[12] "Mrs. Oliphant, in her novel of `Miss Majoribanks,' p. 362. All this
reacts on the brain, and prostration soon follows with collapsed muscles
and dulled eyes. As associated habit no longer prompts the sufferer
to action, he is urged by his friends to voluntary exertion, and not
to give way to silent, motionless grief. Exertion stimulates the heart,
and this reacts on the brain, and aids the mind to bear its heavy load.

Pain, if severe, soon induces extreme depression or prostration;
but it is at first a stimulant and excites to action, as we see when we
whip a horse, and as is shown by the horrid tortures inflicted in foreign
lands on exhausted dray-bullocks, to rouse them to renewed exertion.
Fear again is the most depressing of all the emotions; and it soon
induces utter, helpless prostration, as if in consequence of,
or in association with, the most violent and prolonged attempts to escape
from the danger, though no such attempts have actually been made.
Nevertheless, even extreme fear often acts at first as a powerful stimulant.
A man or animal driven through terror to desperation, is endowed with
wonderful strength, and is notoriously dangerous in the highest degree.

On the whole we may conclude that the principle of the direct
action of the sensorium on the body, due to the constitution
of the nervous system, and from the first independent of the will,
has been highly influential in determining many expressions.
Good instances are afforded by the trembling of the muscles,
the sweating of the skin, the modified secretions of the alimentary
canal and glands, under various emotions and sensations.
But actions of this kind are often combined with others,
which follow from our first principle, namely, that actions
which have often been of direct or indirect service,
under certain states of the mind, in order to gratify or relieve
certain sensations, desires, &c., are still performed under
analogous circumstances through mere habit although of no service.
We have combinations of this kind, at least in part, in the
frantic gestures of rage and in the writhings of extreme pain;
and, perhaps, in the increased action of the heart and of
the respiratory organs.